


(maybe) you'll think of me

by sexonastick



Category: Fallout 4, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:19:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5469629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sexonastick/pseuds/sexonastick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world of Vault 81 is safe and secure, but also suffocating and small. Belle dreams of places where people can roam free. </p><p>And Ruby is just looking for another excuse to run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(maybe) you'll think of me

**Author's Note:**

> For the incredibly talented [critter-of-habit](http://critter-of-habit.tumblr.com/), who I got for Secret Santa.
> 
> And thanks to [lescousinsdangereux](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lescousinsdangereux) for much needed plot advice.

* 

         _Maybe you'll sit and sigh_  
         _Wishing that I were near, then_  
         _Maybe you'll ask me to come back again_  
        _And maybe I'll say maybe_  


* 

Life inside the Vault has its own rhythm, and Belle knows the records on hand by heart, every groove committed to memory. 

But any surface can have its own, almost lyrical quality if you've touched it often enough. Each hallway has its own particular sort of hum. It isn't just from the lights, although those keep steady enough most of the time. Time passes quickly without sunlight to mark the changing of the hours. 

Or so they say. She wouldn't really know as she's only seen it the one time, for about an hour and a half, when she was allowed outside to guard the entrance.

It's strange, she had thought, to have your source of light directed for you across the sky, with no options or say-so in where it is or when it disappears again.

There's nearly nothing like it in the Vault.

There are the occasional days of rationed power, certainly, and then the hours feel almost infinite. They stretch out like a grasping hand or a blanket pulled over a face. She reaches out to feel every corner, runs her fingers across every familiar groove. 

Still, sometimes she stumbles. 

The hardest is the emptiness inside the blackness. No books, no music. How can she be expected to go half a day without any reading? Or even half an hour! 

Well, that becomes easier once she's old enough to have committed every available word to memory. There simply isn't enough. There are never enough sounds or words to fill the cavernous hallways of her mind. Her own thoughts echo back to her and race around again. 

It is exhausting. She feels famished, like she has been on food rations for a week or more, but it's her brain that's always hungry.

When people come in from the outside, she is always eager to meet them with a smile in hopes of a story. She volunteers to work the front when no one else shows interest. She offers anything for a trade.

"I'll give you two InstaMash for that," she says, more eagerly than she knows she ought to. 

She lacks the more deceptive capabilities of a man like Killian, who is often stationed at the front and can bargain with the best of them. But he's been distracted lately with the blonde stationed in security. (Or perhaps that dark haired woman in the kitchen? It's difficult to keep up.)

The trick is to pretend not to want things, to seem to not feel anything at all, no matter how desperately you might desire it.

Belle is terrible at that. "InstaMash and a light bulb." 

The stranger blinks at her in vague confusion. "I haven't said no."

"Not yet, but you might." Belle moves closer and the stranger takes a step back. "I'm negotiating." 

"You're very bad at it."

But the stranger still places the book flat on the table between them before sliding it forward. Belle can't help but smirk. 

She would rather ration the food than her brain or whatever it is that comes with these small connections to the outside world. Heart, maybe. 

She would really rather have full access to her own heart.

* 

The words "collected works" are barely legible on the faded spine, but what it means is clear enough. More words, and plenty of them. Impossible to resist really, so why pretend? Belle is no good at deception, but she has other skills entirely.

When they put her in confinement for a day -- punishment for wasted resources -- she keeps herself easily entertained. She makes up stories about the world outside the Vault and the people in it. Those people who have to let the sun decide for them when they might read, but who never have to keep a curfew if they'd rather walk about.

People who run until their legs are sore, because there's the space for it. People who laugh at the moon and scream at the stars. (People who know the stars on sight and can name every one, as if they were old friends.) People who meet and make new friends. 

She barely notices the time has passed until they come to fetch her, asking her to please stop reciting her stories aloud, there are people trying to work. 

"What do you think I'm doing?" Belle says, wanting to sound properly indignant, but the truth is that they don't know. Neither does she. 

She still hasn't found her place here, after all these years.

* * *

Ruby tries to make a habit not to stick anything in her arm that she hasn't made herself, or at least bought from a reputable source. Generally she prefers not to stick things in her arms, period, end of sentence. But you don't always get a choice out in the Commonwealth.

It's not that she'd ever take Jet. She has no interest in slowing the world down, even though there are days where it feels like the gears won't stop spinning, spinning, spinning her right off the edge of the earth. 

But she doesn't want to check out, even just with her head, just for a while. It's not her time yet and something still tells her she's needed here.

Maybe that's vanity. 

She's not half as good as she wants to be in a firefight. That's why she's sitting on a pile of rubble with blood pouring from a wound and a stimpak gripped gingerly in the other hand. She didn't make it at home or buy it with her own caps, which is why she hesitates now before injecting it into her veins.

She found it in a cooler on the side of the road. She was tempted at the time to just walk on by, half-convinced it was rigged to blow. Some kind of trap for Super Mutants who want to find the laziest and most direct way to refill their bags of meat from the freshest of sources. 

She's probably lucky that the stimpak didn't go off in her hands. 

And really, if she doesn't inject it now, she might not continue to have a hand. The tips of her fingers are starting to feel numb. She needs it.

The needle stings only for a moment. The feeling just after that is almost a chill, a shiver running directly along her bloodstream. 

She feels her jaw clench and resists the impulse to make another, guttural sound. She's honestly not certain if it's pain or some kind of pleasure. 

Maybe both.

Because the blood she smells isn't only her own; there's feral ghoul stink all around her.

* 

When Diamond City began looking for (highly employable, which mostly means broke) citizens willing to go out on patrols of the surrounding city streets to reduce threats and perhaps return with further supplies and resources, Ruby was quick to volunteer. She already spent enough time out in the streets on her own, prowling for scrap to sell off for enough caps to pay for her time at the Dugout Inn.

One day perhaps she would have enough to buy something a little more permanent, not that she was in any kind of a hurry. 

She'd always been a bit of a lone wolf anyway.

* 

It's been a few months since Ruby first moved to the area and took up residency close to the outskirts of the City, just in sight of the big green wall. She's not sure precisely when she arrived; exact measurements of time don't mean much unless you're working as a courier with a deadline to meet -- caps bonus if you get across the entire expanse of the waste in just two days by foot.

Ruby would know. She did that once, faster than most, until the risks began to outweigh the pay. It was hard to justify sticking her neck out to deliver valuable cargo such as collector's bottles of Nuka Cola and books. 

Not that Ruby doesn't enjoy reading. She just prefers breathing, all in all. 

So she left the work behind and set out in search of other opportunities. She hadn't really stopped to consider at the time that her one primary skill set was running right past danger -- particularly when it was the quickest route. 

Trying to live a normal life, free from risk, lasted just around a week (approximately) before she volunteered to patrol the streets with a duct-taped 10mm at her side.

* 

Ruby returns to the city with a trail of speckled blood behind her and a limp added to her step.

Danny tries to stop her at the Fens, with questions about paperwork and all that, but when she shoves a bloody bandage directly into his face, he backs off quick enough. 

The real trouble is that she has nowhere to go. Not exactly. 

The Dugout Inn will have to do for now. It's a roof and a bed and what she considers an okay meal, at least most nights. She needs somewhere safe and secure to sleep off the light-headed, nauseous, half-dead feeling that's crept all the way down into her bones.

* 

The beds at the Dugout are more comfortable than you would expect, just by looking. Good enough, certainly, to collapse into and breathe a heavy sigh of relief after a long day and too much lost blood.

Its mattress creaks whenever she breathes in too deeply, startled suddenly by the pain, but otherwise there is something close to quiet, at least until the next morning.

One day very much like the last.

* 

There is only one measurement of time she cares about now and it is visible every night in the sky above.

Soon.

* * *

After Belle is sent to confinement for the third time in one month, the Summersets pull her aside to express their concern.

"If you're not careful," Mark cautions softly while drying out a glass as best he can with a scrap of cloth. "Reggie is going to start taking this personally…"

Even though she's been Overseer for nearly two years, Mark still thinks of Regina as some sweet girl who grew up in the Vault alongside the rest of them. As though she's someone who thinks of herself as their equal. 

As far as Belle has ever seen, that's simply not the case.

"Regina takes everything personally," is what she says, though, more annoyance showing through than she originally intends. "Because she thinks everything is *about* her."

Maria looks ready to scold them both when the blonde from security shows up, tense and terse, with her back ramrod straight. "Belle." Somehow she makes herself even more stiff and detached once their eyes meet, even though that shouldn't be possible. "… a word, please."

*

Emma has been with them in the Vault for about six months.

In that entire time, Belle has developed an almost endless list of questions, none of which the woman has been able to answer to her satisfaction. She is simply too evasive, never eager to open up about the Commonwealth or her life before. 

_"All that's over now,"_ is what she usually says. (Or one time, it was simply, _"You talk. A lot."_ )

It's true. When she isn't reading, Belle is telling her stories. But all of hers are made up, while Emma's might be exciting and real. 

It's a shame she's taken such an interest instead in maintaining order. 

"I can't help but notice you're getting yourself into a lot of trouble lately." She's placed herself at the edge of her desk, on leg strung up on the back of her chair. It's casual, but allows her just enough height to be imposing now that Belle is sitting down. She looks like a heroic figure out of a fairytale book; all she lacks is the sword at her hip. 

Belle straightens to try to make herself seem taller, but she is never really like any of the heroes in her books. She cannot keep her spine firm enough for very long. "Yes, well." Her brain stalls out for a moment. She does not have the appropriately petulant yet proud retort. "Perhaps it's the world that needs changing," is what she settles on eventually.

"… what?"

It could probably do with some work.

"I only mean the rules, you know." Belle gets a little louder as she gains even the smallest bit of confidence. At least this time she's certain she's on the right track. "They're ridiculous." 

"So you have some things in common."

Belle blinks. "Excuse me?" 

"No." The woman shifts closer, practically looming. "Let's cut the shit. How badly do you want out of here?"

No one speaks like this in here. Maybe it's just because Emma hasn't learned yet, how you're meant to pretend the world outside doesn't exist -- except in those moments when you become so dependent on it that acknowledgment becomes necessity -- and certainly never talk of escape. You wouldn't want the populace getting any ideas.

Given how many times Belle has _asked_ and asked about the world outside, only to be met with stony silence, it's honestly a shock. At first, she doesn't know what to say apart from, "Uhh?"

"Is that a no?" 

"No. I mean-- yes, I would." Belle thinks so, at least. 

It's hard to know things with certainty just now, with the other woman sizing her up with a small frown that suggests she finds something lacking. "It's not easy out there, you know. All your questions and stories." Her mouth is a thin line, twisting and tensing occasionally. She shifts the chair a little with her shoe and it scrapes across the floor, causing Belle to flinch.

But Emma doesn't seem to notice. 

"I don't want easy. I'm tired of easy." Belle lifts her gaze and does her best to hold the other woman's, even when she stares so long that you have to feel uneasy. Certain things about her would make anyone uneasy. Perhaps that's the point. "I'd just like a life that feels like my own."

Without missing a beat, Emma stands and hands over a small pistol with tape wrapped all around the handle and bloody fingerprints near the grip. Belle has never held a gun before and nearly drops it once she feels the sudden weight in her palm.

She is dimly aware that this would make a poor impression. Her reading seems to suggest so, at least. 

"What--"

"Now you'll have your life and you'll have this." When Emma tries to smile, it's a bit like watching someone who has been hit suddenly upside the head and is trying to recall what they had been doing last. It's unsettling, actually. "Maybe you'll need one to keep the other."

* 

Belle leaves the Vault behind come morning.

Her small satchel is packed with all her most valuable things -- books and whatnot -- and enough food to get her on her way for a few days. She hopes that's all she'll need. 

The sun is still rising, so she knows that must be Boston to the east. That's what her reading has told her. She recognizes parts of the skyline from her books, the ones with pictures, and the traders have said that Diamond City lies at the heart of that once great city. Her fingers catch on the chain-link fence, supporting her weight for a moment. She feels herself nearly start to sway.

There is a swelling inside of her chest like a weight being lifted. Like a sudden surging feeling of nearly infinite possibility.

She takes that first step and then another. She is off.

*

A journey of a thousand steps begins at your own doorway. One of Belle's books says that. She'd always thought it seemed a bit unlikely that it was intended to be taken literally. It must be meant as some kind of metaphor.

But in this particular instance, it fits quite well. She does not, however, count her steps as she walks into the city. That would prove distracting and therefor potentially dangerous. She needs to keep her wits about her in the Commonwealth. Everybody says so. 

That water just ahead looks cool and inviting, after all, but it might easily be swarmed by dangerous creatures or poisoned with radiation. Undrinkable. That's what they've always been told about the world outside the Vault. Water that poisons the body and animals that rip the skin clean from your bones.

But so far she has only encountered one very small, very grey cat, happily darting about underfoot.

"Why hello there." Belle can't help but laugh. Her first day away from her home, and here already is a familiar face. "What are you doing here, beautiful?" 

The cat belongs to one of the children in the Vault, and Belle has seen him running along the staircases for years now. Of course, as the only cat present in the Vault he must have come from outside originally. 

Most days inside have blurred together in her head, one indistinguishable from the next, but still she feels as though she might remember the day she first noticed him creeping along a corridor.

Ashes had been a change introduced into the system of their lives, but one that acclimated quickly enough that he soon felt like such a normal part of the routine that it's strange to think he came from elsewhere. And if he could adjust, then surely so can she. 

She takes one step and then another, perhaps even a thousand, on her way into the city.

* 

Belle knows she's nearing Diamond City by the words scrawled on signs as she approaches. Even here, the written word is guiding her, like an old friend.

Another familiar face outside the Vault, with friendly rounded edges around the O and M's. Even the diamond roughed in with green paint feels calming, like a person playfully winking.

This way to home. You've found it at last.

* 

The faces on the men who guard the entrance, however, are less inviting.

Perhaps they have never seen someone stare so long at granite before. Belle has never seen a statue, but she is under the impression they are incredibly common above ground; you can have one made in your honor for doing very little. 

But as it is her first, she takes the time to examine it closely while others might not. He is a baseball player. She knows that, because she's read about it. (She has read about many things.) There is a small plaque inscribed at his feet, but it has been worn away by age and neglect. 

Belle crouches and extends her hand, dragging her fingertips along the etched edges of the words, as though she might be able to detect their meaning through touch alone. As if the surfaces of this new world could ever register in the way that the walls of her Vault often had. 

Suddenly, a man she assumes is a security officer approaches, carrying a rifle as big as Belle’s arm. She’s never seen anything like it before. In the Vault, security will carry weapons, of course, but seldom anything so big. The door is often enough.

For a moment she finds herself staring at it in wonder, thinking that there is very little to keep her from reaching out to touch it. To snatch it from his hands.

Do all people get caught up in such flights of fancy, or only those who are seeing so much of the world for the first time, like babies with far too much mobility?

“Ma’am,” he repeats, sounding impatient. “What are you doing?”

She blinks and then smiles. “Sorry, I was just… Do you know what the plaque said?”

He stares at her in vague confusion for a moment, a mixture of uncertainty and something almost like dislike. Perhaps people don’t usually bother with reading the finer details of this city. “No, ma’am.” 

Belle nods. She had expected as much.

* 

Life in Diamond City isn't quite what Belle had hoped, although if she's honest with herself she doesn't know what she really thought she'd find in the outside world. There is adventure, after all. There is certainly that. And she has found that, more or less, she enjoys the people she meets.

Even the city's mayor seems very kind, if a little eccentric. A funny thing really that a man with a name like Gold should have control over an entire city named for Diamonds. Appropriate. Like a character from one of her books, fated to become one very specific thing or another. 

Belle has never really believed in that sort of thing. Prescribe destiny and what have you. As much as she might enjoy it in a good story, she dislikes the idea of a fate handed down before you've even got there. It's very constricting.

She'd much rather tell her own tale.

* * *

Ruby spends most of the time her first few weeks in Diamond City avoiding people. If she's honest, that's how she spends a lot of her time anywhere.

It's not dislike of other people or even distrust. Not really.

If anything, it's herself she doesn't trust.

* 

The first time the change happened, Ruby woke with red stained on her lips and blood on her hands. She was fifteen and thought she had gone insane. From radiation or what else, she didn't know.

She did not need to remove any tattered or bloody clothing before stepping outside because there was none. She was nude and covered with someone else's blood. Soon there were traces of her own vomit as well. Her hands shook.

It was only once she found the mangled corpse of the nearby brahmin in a field that she began to calm, at least somewhat. This was not the blood of a human.

At least she would always have that.

* 

It did not last.

* 

The first time Ruby wakes up to realize she is responsible for the death of another person, she has been changing for over a year. Fifteen moons have come and gone without great incident.

This time it's different.

The man was quite old, lived a longer life than many get to out in the world, but that was little comfort as she dug a pit to place his body in. Her tears speckled across the red stains on his chest and face. They mixed with dirt and the sweat of concerted effort.

Later that same night, she ran. She did not look back. Granny almost certainly looked for her. Maybe even went looking for her out in the wastes.

Another life lost violently. More blood on her hands.

* 

The first place she settles doesn't last for long. It can't. She's still too close to home and word can travel fast. So can people.

But the farm is nice while it lasts. She enjoys the smell of the earth and works to ignore how clearly the scent of blood begins to mix with it as the moon grows larger. She should not know that mole rats were slaughtered here so recently.

"You okay, Ruby?" the little boy asks. His expression isn't suspicious, as it ought to be. He is openly concerned and eager to help.

"Fine," she lies readily, her jaw pinched and words feeling clipped and tight.

She is not fine. Her blood burns like motor oil. Her heart hammers in her chest.

The boy looks doubtful, but nods, slowly. "Mama asks if you will bring in the brahmin from out in the field."

Her hands shake, but she hides them in her jacket pockets.

"Sure. I will."

* 

The brahmin smell like fear, sweat, and blood. She wonders if the latter comes from what is still in its veins, pulsing just beneath the surface.

As her moon time draws closer, can she really smell that clearly? She takes a single step forward, intrigued to find out, but then thinks better of it. 

Nothing good can come of this. 

None of it. She should have known this already, but it's clear now. The sort of clarity that feels sharp and cuts deeply.

* 

It is days before she will change. She had planned to leave the day before, but instead she disappears into the dark, the stink of other creatures' fear mixing with her own. She's sure any other thing like her could track her by the scent alone.

She does not know if the brahmin ever made it home to sleep.

* 

After that, she goes into the mountains for as long as she can.

Until the ammunition runs out.

* 

Ruby doesn't need friends. She's never been slow with a smile or a friendly comment, it's true. She gets along easily, but that makes disappearing strangely simple. The others may miss her for a while, it's true, but they will move on.

Someone who is harder to ease into your life, more disruptive, they create friction when they come or they go. Even their disappearance is more noticed and remarked upon. She would much rather slip out without warning. 

It is easier to smile readily, answer easily. Don't complain too much, but don't seem weak. People despise weakness too, especially out on the road. 

Not that any of it matters when she mostly keeps the moon for company.

* 

It isn't that different once she's reached Diamond City. She takes a job waitressing at the Dugout when Scarlett needs time off. It helps to pay back her room. She does other odd jobs around the place when called upon.

She switches light bulbs and repairs the busted sink in the men's restroom. She fixes the creaking door to room number five, and cleans blood out of the sheets. 

Hers and other people's.

* 

It might not be the kind of life a person would want to live forever, but that has never been the plan.

Because if she can't find somewhere else to go before the next monthly cycle finishes off, she will have to leave the city behind. Not for her sake, but for everyone else. 

Of course, there's always the chance of just spending a few nights outside in Boston proper.

There are certainly enough Super Mutants to go around.

For the first time in her life, the wolf's hunger might actually make other people happy.

* * *

Belle is living in Diamond City for two days when she meets Piper Wright.

"You're new," the woman says, but unlike other people who have stood too close and stared too long, she doesn't sound suspicious or upset. Only curious. "What's your story, kid?" 

It's a difficult question to answer really. 

Belle knows many stories, but none are her own. 

Even so, she tries to smile politely and provides whatever answer she can. "I am new here, yes. I come from…" It occurs to her, for just a moment that it may be best to lie. 

But she does not think she can make a convincing effort at appearing to be someone who has lived outside the Vault her whole life. Better then to settle on the truth. 

"From?" 

The woman is smiling a little more now, a subtle twist to her lips that ought to seem unnerving but somehow comforts Belle instead. Just enough confidence, at least, to answer back. "I come from Vault 81."

It's at least twenty seconds before the other woman's face goes back to normal.

* 

Piper wants to know everything.

About life in the Vault, yes, but about Belle too. It's really the first time in her life that anyone has asked these kinds of questions. In the Vault, everyone felt as if they already knew.

"What's your _favorite_ thing about being above ground?" 

Belle has to stop to think. So far, there hasn't been as much as she thought there would be that's different. Nothing except the bad. 

There is hunger and confusion. There is fear and anxiety. There is uncertainty, which she thought would be more exciting, but so far it's only led to even greater stomach pains. 

Maybe if she had more caps. 

"I think… my favorite part is still to come." Belle is careful not to blush or show too much uncertainty -- she knows enough to realize it is dangerous to express such things aloud here, even with someone like Piper (who she does not really know) -- before she adds, "Once I've found a way to get more caps."

Piper pauses the holotape recording. "Of course." She stops and studies Belle's face, as if looking carefully for something in it. Belle doesn't know what it could be, honestly, but tries to stay very still, as if to make herself easier to evaluate. "You need a job."

Oh, of course. Somehow it hadn't occurred to Belle that this might be an option for someone like her, an outsider with very little discernible skill set of use in the outside world. "Yes, I suppose so."

"How are you at writing?"

* 

Belle still doesn't completely understand where the caps are coming from, only that Piper has enough to pay her a small fee once a week. Economics has never been an area of expertise. There aren't any books that she's found that discuss bottle caps as a financial standard. Most are from before the war, when it seems as though humanity based its standard of wealth on slips of paper assigning pieces of companies to people who did no work there.

The amount of skill required to participate in this system was at least equal to Belle's own ability now. She thinks sometimes that she might have survived easiest in the world before the war. Surely many people think the same, although most have done more to acclimate to the world we have now.

Most of them have had more time to do so. 

For Belle, most of her exposure to economics has come from a closed system. For the Vault, most things you might need are given out to everyone. Survival is not considered a premium. Food is a necessity. The only things that would qualify as luxury were Belle's books, which she would barter or trade for. Cleaning work in exchange for a new volume.

Until they ran out of any books at all. 

Now the world and its possibilities are seemingly infinite, but there are not enough caps to obtain any of the new experiences -- of words, _books_ , stories she has never heard before -- that she had imagined opening up to her once she ventured into this new world. 

That is, before she began to write for Piper, who would provide holotapes to be transcribed or turned into Belle's best attempts at engaging stories. Sometimes they were about general daily life inside of Diamond City or conspiracy theories regarding politics -- apparently Piper's favorite kind of writing -- but also about people's individual personal lives and stories. Their dreams and aspirations. 

These are Belle's own favorite kinds of pieces to write. 

The secret insides of a person's identity or ideals. Who they are when they feel no one is watching.

It's amazing what Piper can sometimes get people to talk about. Belle can hear it on the recording, how a person starts to change their perspective on the conversation. They spill open like the pages of a book, slowly at first but with increasing speed and conviction. Tumbling like a stone on a rough hewn hillside.

Belle could never reveal a person like that. For all of her interest in people and their stories, they remain mostly a mystery when it comes time to interact directly.

Most people look at her and immediately recognize the details that mark her as different. She is forever kept apart from them in her limited understanding of this world that is so innate to who they all are as people.

So she leaves the excavation of lives to Piper and studies the intricacies instead. Tries to find a way to pin someone's heart onto the page.

* 

It's slow going at first, although not from a lack of effort.

Belle does not think she has ever expended so much energy on anything before, aside from reading. This time, for once, there is an audience for her tales, however eager (or sometimes especially not) they might be. 

But the writing is uneven. She can tell from the way Piper purses her lips as she reads, smiles kindly, and then suggests she begin it all again.

"It's a craft, that's all," Piper says with incredible gentleness, as though she is afraid for Belle's mental stability. Maybe as a writer herself, she is relating to the toil and struggle, although Belle thinks that someone with Piper's capacity for understanding people would have difficulty ever writing poorly about them. 

She has a certain skill that is rare indeed and almost impossible to emulate by simply watching. Belle knows. She's tried already. 

It will take time instead. 

Good then that there is plenty of that here, at least until the sun goes down.

* 

Belle finds herself reading often, whenever there is no new writing to be done or holotapes to transcribe.

She hopes that consuming words might make her own use of them more regular and fine, carefully formed. As though a skillful use of words is something that might transfer across her fingertips from the page in a way that close proximity and attention to Piper has never managed. 

Her thumbs are covered in smudged ink and her eyes are strained from long nights spent squinting, but her old friends are there for her, waiting, in worn and familiar pages. She turns first to the ones she remembers from childhood. Familiar stories that remind her of all the things she knows about the world with such an immediacy that is usually felt only in the ways one might know oneself. 

She moves on eventually to the new collection of stories. Fairy tales that teach caution but promise the hope of a better, brighter future. A reward for those who practice patience and kindness and measured responses in all things.

Belle has seldom had the right habits to live the way the heroes do in her favorite stories, but at least she can learn lessons from watching them. 

Perhaps she will do a better job in receiving instruction from them than from Piper.

* 

There is a table of contents at the front, a road map to this new geography of her heart. (The places inside herself that Belle does not even know exist yet.)

She reads them over carefully, dragging her finger along the edge of every line and feeling the way it seems to almost catch against the corners of the words. Their sense of certainty. 

Here at least is something true, in its own way.

* 

She reads so many words but sees no improvement in her own.

That is, until she finds just the right story to tell. Suddenly the words flow endlessly, as though a stopper has been pulled loose from the plugged up parts of her heart. The vault doors opened and she ran out into the sunlight, never mind the fact that it would eventually direct its beams somewhere else. 

It's better to have run at all.

* 

"This is good!" Piper exclaims, leaping from the sagging sofa tucked against the wall in the small home she shares with her sister. This is the official offices of the _Publick Occurrences_ as well, and therefor Belle's place of employment. (She does her best to pretend not to notice the bedrolls.) "This is damned good…"

Belle feels a sudden swelling rush of pride. She tries to contain it, to keep her expectations for this interaction reasonable, but a smile has already broken out on her face. 

She can't help it. This story means a lot to her. 

"Do you really think so?" 

Piper responds with a grunt, already distracted as she dives back in on page two. As she starts to pace, Belle feels a very strong compulsion to join her, but refrains. 

She grips the edge of the sofa instead. That is, until a bit of stuffing nearly comes off when she moves her hand. 

After that, she is slightly more delicate.

* 

As Piper continues to read, Belle thinks that she would prefer to be the sort of person who smokes.

She'd like to go take a cigarette outside, just for the excuse to think about something, anything, other than the way Piper's expression changes as she reads the story of a person she should already know in intimate detail. She conducted the interview, after all. 

It's a compliment to Belle's writing really; she probably ought to be flattered. Instead she feels only a pointed, prickling discomfort. The moment feels oddly personal, private, to witness Piper as she's reading. 

Just as the words coming out of the holotape had been.

*

Even though Belle's never met the woman whose scratching voice she had heard coming through the speaker, it sometimes feels as if she has. When Belle would close her eyes, she could almost imagine her face. There is kindness written there, she's sure. An easy smile and an eager laugh.

But there is sadness too, etched in around the eyes. Buried there. 

The recording starts and stops often. She doesn't always hear what particular questions Piper has asked or how exactly she has worked the woman through whatever snag was keeping her from answering. She can't help but wonder, though. 

In fact, just now, watching Piper trace a pattern back and forth across the main floor of the Occurrences, the only thing she can really think about is this woman who speaks with a halting but desperate affection for the woman who raised her. The grandmother left behind. She thinks about her face as she imagines it and listens closely to her voice as she knows it (intimately) and hopes to have done her justice. 

It's the very least that she can do.

* 

They go out to celebrate what Piper calls her first "hold your breath moment."

She says first as if to suggest there will be many more and slings her arm across Belle's shoulder as if to suggest a casual, life-long friendship. The waitress at the Dugout Inn looks up and considers them carefully before she smiles. 

"Hello, Piper," the woman says, tucking a pencil into her apron. "Who's your friend?"

Belle knows that voice. She has listened to it with rapt attention for days that stretched onward into weeks. She has transcribed every word and held on to ever halting breath or shivering sigh. 

She knows what that mouth sounds like when its words are wet with unspent tears, and now she sees it too. She has tried to imagine this face for so long that it takes a concentrated effort not to stare. 

She does her best.

To Piper's credit, she barely registers her surprise. She blinks, loses herself for a few seconds, and then starts again, a smile in place like a grand and waving gesture. False in a way she seldom is. "Oh, Ruby! Hey. I didn't know you were working today…"

The holotapes, a series of three, had each been labeled with another name as well as a date and number. A codename, Belle had been certain. Something to protect the identity of this unnamed source. 

A source who probably didn't expect to meet face-to-face with the very people telling her story. At least certainly not so soon. But if she's uneasy about it, she doesn't show it at all. 

There's still a smile on her face (Belle had known there would be), and she gestures toward a table between the bar and the rooms for rent. "Yeah, Scarlett has the day off. You two grab a seat and I'll be by."

* 

Belle waits the entire meal for Piper to offer some kind of explanation or at least to acknowledge that, yes, this is the very same woman who had offered up her heart-wrenching story about running away from home for them to consume and illustrate for the masses at large.

This was the woman on the three tapes who Piper had decided to refer to only as Red. 

If there was a reason for the secrecy and quiet, Belle would do her best to play along. Still, it was hard not to demand to know more, even with the woman standing nearby. 

Even a quiet nod of acknowledgment would have been appreciated. The silence was maddening. 

Surely she had endured enough of confinement and quiet for a lifetime.

* 

"Is everything okay?" asks the voice that Belle has so long associated with a person named Red -- but apparently is called Ruby instead -- with the kind of smile Belle had assumed she must have. Welcoming in a way few people are with Belle in Diamond City. "I could go get you something more substantial from the back, you know. Maybe some brahmin steak."

She thinks she sees a momentary flicker of doubt in the other woman's eyes, but dismisses it as her own anxiety projected onto someone else. The story Red -- no, Ruby -- had told was personal, after all, but something she herself was probably used to. Perhaps she had already found the time to come to terms with her grief and move on. 

It was probably just Belle who was making things more difficult and prolonged. (Maybe the woman didn't even notice.) "No," she says, trying to smile just the same way. "But thank you. We're celebrating, but we have to return to work soon."

"Oh, does she work for you, Piper?"

Belle is almost certain she notices a change on the woman's face. 

"Yeah, she's new." 

Ruby nods and flicks her eyes away, and this time Belle is sure. The smile on her face is no longer pleasant or self-assured, though she does her best to hide it. "You know, let me get you a bit of iguana on a stick, just to welcome you to Diamond City."

"You really don't have to--"

But the woman is gone without another word and later it is Vadim who brings the plate of food over instead. He sets it sharply on the table, with a pointed sort of annoyance, and doesn't bother glancing back. 

Belle looks for the woman the rest of the meal, but she doesn't return or even cross toward the exit. 

She is gone.

*

_The recorder whirls back to life after an extended pause. The voice takes a single, slow breath in._

_"You've told me about leaving…"_

_"All I'm going to say about it, yeah," the voice corrects Piper, talking sharply and quickly, and it's unclear as to why until she goes on to add; "Everybody has their own reasons for things."_

_"Personal, I understand." Piper's voice is soothing suddenly, but charming too. She's a pal, just having a casual conversation (with a holotape recorder in your face). "But tell me about the time that you went back…"_

_Another long pause and this time the breath in is almost painful. Ragged. Like clothing caught on the jagged edges of a fence or skin burnt beneath the sun. There is something just there, gentle underneath, but the friction of the world has turned it into something else._

_She breathes out again, saying, "Once I got back, I went back to look, Granny was dead. That's all." The words come out all in a rush, as if they might be slipped back into oblivion right after. Buried beneath the crushing weight of their reality, at least out of sight once again. Forgotten._

_The tape rolls for moments longer, just the static and the sound of two women breathing. "Okay," Piper says eventually. "How about we go over this in detail later?"_

_"Mm."_

_It's all the other woman says. A vague and noncommittal sound of dissatisfaction. (Or perhaps an effort to clear her throat. To dislodge the discomfort and emotion there.)_

At this point, Belle would feel compelled to stop the recording, at least to take a break to recompose herself. 

But there is no need. This is the end of holotape two.

*

Belle makes a point not to return to the Dugout Inn whenever possible after that except when going to bed or waking in the morning.

She does not need to make Ruby feel ashamed or unhappy, just by looking at Belle's face and wondering what kinds of things she might know. (Nothing really. Almost nothing certain, except what it feels like to have lost. Those things they both know about loss.)

She would never say a word, but the other woman cannot know that. She can only sense the things that should not be known between them. The intrusions upon what was not even yet a trust. 

So Belle takes her book and her paper -- the small, scattered collection of pens -- with her everywhere else inside the city. If she still cannot conduct interviews herself, she can at least make observations. 

She watches people go about their days, and notices the changes in the world around them. As the sun tracks its way across the sky, she learns how even that impacts the movements of the people in the city. 

Slowly, carefully, with focused attention, Belle is able to learn the things that come so naturally to most people. She takes careful notes and alternates between these wordy constructions and the intense consumption of other people's words. Pieces of entirely other worlds. 

She is not always sure which place it is that she prefers. There was a time, she would have said her books. Certainly. Immediately. 

But there is something different here, in the ways the people take careful note of one another and react accordingly, each to the other. It is not exactly the same as a moral or directive thematic to a text, though there is the same feeling of course correction. 

The people are simply living their lives and they do these things as more than just a lesson to be learned.

* 

Once at midday, when the sun is at its highest, she sits on a stool at Power Noodles and reads instead of writing. (There is very little to observe of the behaviors and exhausted interactions between the city's people and a protectron with a very limited vocabulary.)

It probably should not be a surprise when Piper finds her. She knows everything about the city -- excepting whatever willful ignorance she extends to her sister's occasional, childish misdeeds. 

Keeping clear of Red (Ruby) had at least made a specific kind of sense given Belle's sudden but very severe bout of conscience, but it's more difficult to say why she had been avoiding the office as well. Maybe because this was their shared burden of guilt, made suddenly concrete and clear when the other woman had been drawn into the flesh. 

No longer only a voice or a concept, there she had stood, frown lines suddenly appearing where before there had been none. They had caused that. Together.

"Good book?" Piper asks, avoiding the topic in much the same way that Belle had avoided her. (Perhaps there is a reason they both get along so well.) "What's it about?"

Fairy tales and imaginary second chances, Belle thinks, but she knows better than to say it. 

Instead, she says, "The way the world could be." 

"That's every book." Piper stops and turns slightly on her stool to look Belle over once, carefully. "And a lot of stories too. The good ones." A beat. "The great ones." 

Belle almost stumbles in her hurry to stand and get away. 

Just somewhere, anywhere else. Now at last she has the freedom and room to run, but she finds herself almost tripping over her own feet. "Sorry," she wheezes out in a sudden rush, a half-hearted gasp for air, as she charges into the crowd, book of fairy tales clutched to her chest like a shield. 

She does not blame Piper for wanting to work through this, whatever it is. A part of her is even certain that would be the appropriate reaction. 

But Belle is not equipped for that kind of interaction with another person. Better instead to disappear inside of Boston proper. 

At least there the only harm to be done is against herself.

*

All the photographs of Boston that Belle has ever had on hand are two hundred years old. The buildings in front of her don't align exactly with anything as she had imagined it. She had thought there would be less waste and ruin. Perhaps fewer body parts strewn in the street.

That sort of thing.

Still, she is determined to find something else worth writing about. Anything other than another person's pain, pulled loose and dissected for her own interest and enjoyment. 

Anything at all. 

Something that wasn't once a living person would be a good start, at least.

*

The library! Of course.

Belle has read about that place. She has read about it in books of the kind that might be found at the library, in fact. From what she can tell, all sorts of books are in libraries. Maybe even every book.

Maybe even hers. 

"Collected Works," it says, but only one part of a collection. One of three. The first part, and while beginnings can be good -- a necessity -- they are only a small part of what is needed to become whole. 

There are so many unfinished promises. She has committed the names of stories she may never see to memory by strumming along them with her finger, over and over. The cords of worlds she may never know. 

The library may well be her only hope of discovering this or any other thing she might be missing. The wholeness she had hoped to acquire through careful study of everyone else's human condition might still reside only in books. 

It would be a beautiful sort of irony. (The dramatic kind. Not literal, as can be found in many dictionaries.)

*

The danger, of course, is the beast that resides within the Boston Public Library.

"Everyone knows about it," Piper had warned, speaking in low and grave tones. "They hear it screaming in the night and find the bloody bones of Super Mutants left in Copley Square."

Belle had been quite certain that she visibly gulped. "Oh, yes?" She wanted to sound calm and neutral, merely curious in much the same way Piper might be, but her hands were shaking until she griped her own knees. 

(Not the sofa. Never the sofa, if she could remember.) 

"Maybe we should rename it Corpse-ley Square." 

A beat. Belle tried to smile. 

"Do you get it?" 

Her stomach had felt like it was made of led, swollen in a strange and unsettling way. "Oh… yes."

*

There are probably worse things than monsters roaming the halls of the library at night. It is still broad daylight, after all, and anything that rips Super Mutants limb from limb at least has proper priorities.

It would be far worse, she thinks, to live forever with so many unfinished stories. 

Better instead to try to find any part of her spine that might be half so stiff and certain as that of a major work of literary achievement. Something that can be carried through life without falling apart at its edges.

*

The outside of the library looks like a fortress, imposing and tall. It is bigger than almost anything Belle has ever stood directly in front of.

Though to be fair, she seldom stands close to older buildings in Boston, simply to avoid falling bricks and debris. 

Explorers guide to ancient buildings: always knock before entering, and if something blood curdling shouts from the other side of the door, retreat very quickly with all limbs still in tact. 

This assumes, of course, that there are no long range missiles involved, but at least it's an effort at survival. So she knocks. 

And she waits. 

Then with a deep breath in -- and a stoney resolve fixed upon her face -- she steps inside the ancient building, her own shadow stretching out before her like a hand frantically grasping until the sun disappears from the doorway, snuffed out abruptly by the closing door.

*

It is difficult to find anything amongst the stacks without lights to guide her, but there is still sunlight peaking in through a few of the windows -- the ones that haven't been boarded up entirely -- and she begins to move with a surer footing, despite the unfamiliarity of the place.

There is something about the books themselves that reminds her of home. As much as Belle had tried to escape those old and familiar things, she finds the years spent inside the winding tunnels of the Vault are a comfort here. It makes it easier to move with assurance as she rounds every sharp corner and corridor, disappearing deeper in amongst the shelves. 

The architecture makes her think of ancient cathedrals, or at least what she has read of them in books. High, vaulted ceilings and etchings that may have taken years to make. As though this was once a place to come and worship. 

She understands that on a basic, bone-deep level. Something about it makes her want to open up and sing, or at least start to hum. A shivering sort of anticipation, just at the edge of her fingertips or underneath the very tip of her tongue. 

One step and then another, each and every one reverberating against the walls.

*

If there is a beast here, it has left very little trace. The stacks are immaculately kept and cleaned for a place that was supposed to have fallen into misuse and disarray over two hundred years ago.

Perhaps the evil angry spirit of the library is only grumpy because it has been disturbed while trying to read about its favorite places -- the geography of imagination.

Belle could certainly relate to that.

* * *

There is someone in the library.

For the first time in weeks, someone else has come. Ruby's first instinct is to become the wolf and frighten them away. It worked last time, after all. 

But still, she hesitates. It is not always easy to control the animal once she is inside its skin. Sometimes there is so little of her left inside that she almost feels as though she is no longer her real self. 

(Whatever is left when the girl sheds away like snake skin is more alive and real than the animals she eviscerates. At least she always will have that.) 

Something stops her long enough to stand, ears straining. 

The moon will come again soon and so she can hear every shuffling footstep. Every hesitation and sudden, sharp breath in. 

She hears the person, whoever they are, drawing closer and makes no move to prevent any of it as it unfolds before her. It feels almost inevitable, like a snare tightening around her throat. 

Perhaps that's why she finds it suddenly so hard to breathe.

Ruby should want to stop them, whoever they are, and yet she waits instead, wide-eyed and uncertain as the familiar face rounds the corner. 

She knows that girl on sight. It's the one who works for Piper, who almost certainly knows so many things she already should not. The one with the friendly smiles and uncertain expression in her eyes. 

"You," Ruby finds herself saying before she can think to say anything else. The words are on her lips and then suddenly striking on the air. Too late to drag them back now, even though the girl -- Belle, she had said her name was Belle -- receives them like several sharp blows to the chest, wincing slightly. 

"Yes, and… you." 

At least they've managed to sort out that much. It's a start.

*

Ruby feels safe enough with the girl standing in front of her to sit back down in the chair once again, a single foot propped on the seat of the chair tucked in across the table from her. Belle watches the movements carefully, closely, as if she were someone vaguely unnerved by such a casual stance taken in a place she herself had stepped into slowly, as though it held some holy relevance.

As though libraries should all be worthy of reverence. 

"Did you need something?" 

Although she's still watching the girl carefully, the book gripped in her hands nearly forgotten, Ruby tries to feign a calm disinterest. She wants to seem centered and serene. In charge in her own way. 

Ruler of all she surveys, including the stacks of books near the edge of the table she sits at. 

"I'm here for a book," Belle says eventually, her voice so quiet that Ruby finds her ears straining slightly again. 

It's just enough for her to hear, however. 

Ruby's impulse is to smile, to keep things light and friendly. "Of course you are." 

But it's the wrong move, and it shows on Belle's face when she takes a sudden sharp breath in. 

Oh. This had been a test, and Ruby failed. 

Of course the girl has heard the stories about the creature here. Being menacing enough to keep most humans away had always been part of the plan, although apparently it only works on the kind of people who have enough of a vested interest in protecting their own hides. 

Runaways who chose to escape from the safe confines of a vault don't usually fit into that category. 

Suddenly Ruby is standing again. 

It's not so much an attempt to look imposing as it is readying herself to run if necessary. 

From the terrified look in the girl's eyes, it just might be.

The only thing it could be is terror. Horror. Revulsion. The kind of fear that soaks through a person's skin and chokes the air, catching in Ruby's throat. 

Except she doesn't smell it yet. Not yet, and that is strange. 

She takes a step closer, and the girl does too. Not retreat, but forward. "How did you…" 

That look is not horror at all. It must be curiosity. Enthusiasm and all those other dangerous emotions that get all the kind-hearted people killed. Or worse. (There are a few things worse. Torn limb from limb by a vicious animal is certainly one.) "Sneak in here? There's a back door."

"That isn't what I meant." 

"Yeah, but." Ruby's hands are in her pockets but her shoulders are slouched in a show of seeming non-threatening. She wonders if the right kind of person would have drawn their gun by now. "Maybe you should."

Belle shrugs, and her own hands hang loose and empty at her side, palms exposed. Her smile is ready and seems very real at least. "Maybe." Another shrug. "So are you going to tell me?"

*

A few simple rules for staying alive in the Commonwealth.

Don't enter into any alleyway or tunnel alone if you can't clearly see its exit. If there are enough cars to make it difficult to see, it might easily be a trap. Assume the worst, and just don't go. 

When in doubt, run.

Nearly every Super Mutant is more stupid than he looks, but probably even stronger too. Only engage if it's the only route home. 

Try to find a home, but make sure that it's temporary.

Don't ever, under any circumstances, follow a pretty girl back to her place like some kind of little lost puppy.

*

Oops.

*

It turns out that Belle's "place" is still the Dugout Inn, same as Ruby. They sit close together on the bed that Belle has paid for through the week, exactly one door down from Ruby's own.

It's strange that they haven't seen each other here, not since she noticed the girl's face clearly enough and began to keep an eye out for her. 

She suspects that Belle may have been on the lookout as well, though, but simply in reverse. It's obvious she has been keeping clear of Ruby, for whatever reason. (She could venture a few guesses.) 

Whatever reservations Belle may have had, however, they are out the window now. 

Now there is only unbridled curiosity and far too may questions. 

"So you're _really_ able to just change? Into--"

"A monster." 

"A hero," Belle insists very stubbornly. It's charming, in its way. That way she sets her jaw and how she insists on moving close to the woman who has just told her there is a beast inside her, breathing just beneath the restraints of her skin. 

If she thinks about it closely, carefully, Ruby isn't sure why she said it aloud. She doesn't know how the words finally came loose or where they originated from. All she knows is that it feels safe somehow to share these secrets with the other girl. 

Perhaps because she knows so many of the worst parts already. "Heroes don't run off into the night and leave their loved ones to rot." 

It's good that this gives Belle pause. It reassures her that she's listening at least, even if she eventually answers with, "There are all sorts of heroes in the stories. They can change. Anyone can." 

"Life isn't a story," Ruby says, more sharply than she would like. She hates how her words land against this woman, like sharp blows. Like the wolf has taken too much control, even in her human skin. 

She hates not knowing if that is only a cheap excuse. If this is simply who she is all the time. Some kind of too angry monster.

But somehow, inexplicably, Belle is still smiling. "But don't you think it can be?"

* * *

It takes three days of carefully phrased promises and concentrated concern for Belle to convince Ruby to sit down for another interview, this time only with her. Off the record, unless Ruby herself decides otherwise. No holotape and no identifiable names. Only handwritten notes and a compassionate ear.

She listens carefully to the entire story. It begins with blood and ends with tears. 

"I don't know where Granny went…" 

Ruby's eyes are locked on a fixed point in the wall where the metal has rusted into a strange shape almost like a rabbit. 

Belle can't help but wonder for a moment if some of the instincts that draw Ruby's attention toward it are almost canine -- she regrets it immediately, how horribly bigoted -- and tries suddenly to refocus both of their attention. "I'm sorry," she clears her throat; "Could you say that again?"

Ruby's eyes shift back over to meet Belle's and suddenly there's a sharp pain inside her chest. Could that be one of the things these kinds of beings are capable of? A side effect of Ruby's sudden intense attention. 

"Granny," she says softly, voice low. "I don't know where she went."

"… so she might still be alive?" Belle realizes suddenly, surging forward to the edge of her own seat. 

But Ruby smirks. "It's very unlikely." 

Unlikely or unusual things happen all the time in fairytales. It's a part of the very fabric of their design. It is necessary to believe in at least a little bit of luck and a kind of divine intervention.

Why can't any of it be applied to life?

"But she might be." 

Belle doesn't really wait for confirmation before carrying on with phase two of her very sudden but brilliant plan.

*

Traders come and go in Diamond City regularly. They are all so weary from the world, tired expressions on their face. Offer them whatever you like, and it is never enough to surprise or please them.

They are all better at driving a bargain than Belle has ever been. The trick is to not show the things you want, and she has never been good at that.

Especially now when she wants more sure and sharply than she ever has before. It is a want for someone else. On their behalf, yes, but also something more. 

She cannot keep this from her face or the rapid beating of her heart. 

So she does the next best thing, and offers up the rest of her world. A book in exchange for a message carried to the next town over, and then the next. Simply _"have you seen this woman,"_ and a description of Ruby's grandmother. 

If she is out there, somewhere, surely the traders who have seen too much and traveled too far will find her. 

"You just want me to ask about a woman?" the skeptical trader is asking. She squints down at the spine of the book in her hand, turning it over. "… I remember this." Her eyes jerk back up to meet Belle's. 

This is the same trader (once only a stranger) who had given the first volume of the collected works to Belle in the beginning, what now feels like a lifetime ago.

She sets the book down and frowns a bit. This time Belle cannot muster up the energy to smirk. "I supposed you might."

"You are still very bad at trading." 

"Yes."

It is true. But she has become surprisingly proficient in a few other things.

*

Books had always been Belle's favorite things to look at and touch, but she thinks now she may have a few ideas of other things that can be tactile in a way would find pleasing. She might not need so many familiar things when she can learn to write new worlds for herself and others.

What need is there of something that is only early beginnings when she can make her own middle or end? 

She cannot know what lies ahead, beyond the next dash or comma, but that is life. The world has never really been a story, no matter how pleasing that would be. How much easier to understand. 

Life is harder than that. Ruby's Granny, after all, might still be dead. She may never return. 

It's impossible to know. 

But Belle is determined to try. She is certain and self-assured with a confidence a bit like the taught pull of leather binding. This feeling is new, and Belle is quite sure that she likes it. 

She returns to the office for the day and smiles readily at Piper, who looks tense and almost uncertain until the very moment she sees that look on Belle's face and relaxes every muscle, one by one.

*

That night Belle walks to the Dugout with a lightness in her step that is surprising, even to her.

She skips right past her own bedroom -- paid for through the month -- and knocks on Ruby's instead, light but self-assured. 

There is only a moment's pause before the door opens, with the woman standing on the other side. 

"Were you listening for me?" Belle cannot help but grin. 

"No, not at all." 

Ruby is almost as terrible a liar as she is, Belle thinks, although she does a relatively alright job of keeping her expression neutral as she stands aside, door held open.

*

There are many things Belle may never know and stories she might not hear unfold. There is a world of almost infinite possibilities, but not every one is going to present itself to everyone. There is uncertainty, yes, but also choice. Chances.

She had thought for so long that the most terrible thing would be a lifetime without the kinds of things she had come to think of as necessary answers. A center to her being. 

Now she knows better. Who cares if she never knows what happened to someone named Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, or Red Riding Hood? 

She has her own Red now. They'll make their own story.

*

When Belle is cold or uncertain in the night, she rolls over, reaching out with her fingertips to touch the edges of this new and largely unexplored world, fingertips grazing across the other woman's hip.

This is new territory to be explored, a spiraling and uncertain galaxy of possible outcomes. She wants to learn each and every one, commit them to the memory of her fingertips (and possibly their taste). 

And who knows. There may be time enough for that. 

The next chapter to their life. 

When she shivers, Ruby seems to know it, no matter how deeply in sleep. She moves closer, and her warmth envelops Belle. Instead of confining, it is calming. Like fingers skimming over an unfamiliar page, but then tracing over every well known loop or curve of ink. That place between what is new and things that are as familiar as childhood memory. 

Belle is not sure she has a word for this, in all her years of consumption or even what little time she has been able to spend in learning of their creation. The closest she can come is simply "home." 

Perhaps that is enough. 

This is their shared home now; here in the warmth and weight of one another's arms.


End file.
